Cardinal spends as Workshop suffers

Saturday

May 20, 2017 at 2:01 AM

It was an interesting bit of timing to learn this week of a state auditor’s report highly critical of what it called excessive spending by Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions less than two weeks after learning that Cardinal plans to deeply cut funding for the Workshop of Davidson County.

For perspective, Cardinal manages and monitors services for the mentally ill, substance abusers and people with developmental disabilities in 20 counties, including Davidson. The Workshop of Davidson County provides a vocational program for developmentally disabled adults. Cardinal has told Workshop leaders that it plans to cut funding by 20 percent in the upcoming fiscal year and – despite objections from their family and caretakers – wants to move more clients to what it calls “supported employment’ in the general workforce.

It seems now, though, that Cardinal could move any clients who are interested into the general workforce while still fully funding the Workshop of Davidson County – at least, if the results of the audit are true. At the behest of legislators, State Auditor Beth Wood's office conducted the audit, which determined Cardinal "has not demonstrated accountability in the use of its federal and state resources as evidenced by some of its spending.” That spending, as alleged in the audit, included $1.2 million in unauthorized salary payments to its current and former CEO since 2014; more than $250,000 over two years on board retreats, meetings and travel; and more than $18,000 on a Christmas party, with an average cost of $242 per attendee.

Cardinal, of course, asserts it has done nothing improper, that its CEO’s salary – which is $440,000 higher than authorized for regional mental health agency CEOs by the North Carolina Office of Human Resources – is allowed under plans approved by the state and that the audit found no “deficiencies with Cardinal innovations' performance with regard to meeting the service needs of its members” or “any type of fraud or malfeasance."

Maybe not, but the audit did call Cardinal’s spending “unreasonable.” For an agency that got 85 percent of its 2016 funding – about $600 million – from Medicaid, that might be an understatement. As N.C. Sen. Tommy Tucker of Union County said, Cardinal leaders have "spent money in ways that are very difficult to justify to those populations that are very difficult to serve.” Tucker said the Senate will advance legislation next week that would limit salaries for Cardinal’s CEO and others in similar positions. We hope that bill succeeds. More oversight might be in order, as well.

For now, though the Workshop of Davidson County could use more funding to keep fully serving the people who like it there, and whose families like them being there. Maybe Cardinal could forgo the Christmas party this year.